GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Image from InformationArchitects.jp

In design and intent, the iPad is a focus-producing machine. Nearly the entire device is a screen, and every application consumes the entire screen. Information Architects’ new Writer app brings that same hyperfocused aesthetic to word-processing.

Writer is not, like Pages, a desktop publishing application. It’s not really even a textual editor, in the sense that it supports easy correction or rearrangement of already-typed text. When you put the application in “Focus Mode,” it doesn’t even have spellcheck or cut-and-paste. Instead, it’s all about textual production — writing this phrase, this sentence, this word at this moment. As the creators note, “the idea is to activate it when you get stuck, blinding out everything else.”

It’s not particularly customizable, but again, that’s the point. Don’t screw around picking out margins or a font. We’ve picked it for you — and it’s already optimized for your screen. There are a few smart additions, like Dropbox integration and a “reading time” feature that estimates how long it will take a reader to make their way through your text.

More features and tweaks are (naturally) promised for future versions, as is a desktop app. According to iA, it would actually have been easier to release the desktop application first, but the iPad offered something unique: “In spite of its passive character, the awkward keyboard, the stubborn iOS and its many other faults, the iPad has the power to drag you in and make you forget about the world around you.”

Version 1.0 dropped today and is available in the Apple Store for $4.99. With the iPad getting printing with iOS 4.2, there’s a good chance we may see see document production apps for iOS, each offering something distinctive, explode.

H/T to Liz Danzico/Bobulate.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Alternate MS Office icons by talwayseb, via CrystalXP.net

Microsoft is a giant company working in many different fields, but in the consumer market, apart from XBox, it does one thing really well: software. After some high-profile, quickly-aborted misadventures in mobile, that’s what it’s going to focus on from now on.

Microsoft’s Tivanka Ellawala told the WSJ that the company’s done with smartphone hardware (beyond in-house prototypes, presumably): We are in the software business and that is where our business will be focused,” he said. That means no follow-ups to the Kin social media smartphone, definitely; no resuscitation of the Courier e-reader/tablet project, probably; and a new focus on making apps for other platforms, quite possibly.

What kinds of platforms? I don’t know — how about the iPad?

On Wednesday, Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott confirmed the rumors on Twitter: “Shhh…. It’s true: Microsoft is working on iPad apps.” Makes perfect sense to me:

• Microsoft was never fully behind smartphone/tablet hardware;
• Its mobile OS is battling stiff competition on all sides;
• They’ve always been a multi-platform company;
• And, um, they’ve already got apps on the iPhone. (Bing. For now.)

So besides search, what are we talking about here? Microsoft Office? (Which, remember, includes a LOT of apps, not just Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.) Games? Messenger? Frontend clients for Windows Live? Specialized applications for enterprise clients? Virtual PC, to mix it up with VMWare’s anticipated virtualization apps? No one knows.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Happy news for iPhone- and iPad-using fans of the $10 standard flavor of office/productivity suite Documents To Go: Yesterday, version 4.0 was released for iOS. The $15 Documents To Go Premium hit 4.0 last week.

These were the first updates of the application following Blackberry-maker RIM’s partial acquisition of Documents To Go creators DataViz. RIM had announced that it had reassigned the majority of the company’s employees to developing applications for Blackberry smartphones and the Blackpad tablet; this had cast some doubt on future updates of Documents to Go for other platforms.

Still, this may be the last major update Documents To Go will see for iOS. We can assume that 4.0 was mostly in the can when RIM bought DataViz’s assets early this month. If RIM does indeed let multi-platform development of Documents To Go slide, that creates an opening for many would-be/could-be competitors — including Microsoft Office.

DataViz keeps Documents To Go updates coming [MacWorld]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Windows Phone 7 Office Image via Microsoft.

Traditionally, Microsoft has been a software company, leveraging its office suites and operating systems, but selling applications for any compatible hardware and platform. For smartphones in particular, its strategy has been to supply the software and let other companies worry about developing the phones. So why not go all the way and sell its software for every device on every platform?

That’s what Business Insider’s Dan Frommer proposes the company do: “Microsoft should develop Office apps for the iPad, Android, Chrome OS, BlackBerry tablet, and any other computing platform that is likely to become popular over the next 5-10 years,” adding that “if Microsoft wants to keep people tied into its Office suite, it needs to go where the people are going.”

Office is integrated into the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 OS, but would compete on several fronts in smartphone and tablet platforms, including iWork on Apple’s iPad, Google Docs on the mobile web, and Dataviz’s multi-platform Documents To Go, just acquired by Blackberry maker RIM.

Frommer sees RIM’s purchase of Documents To Go as a defense against the possibility of Microsoft introducing an Office app for Blackberry. Ironically, if RIM stops active development of Documents To Go for other platforms, that could create just the multi-platform opening needed to entice Microsoft to swoop in.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews